


Half

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Runawaystuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-09-02
Updated: 2011-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-23 08:54:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by the Runawaystuck AU (and from very early on, hence some key differences in characters that weren't established at the time). A story about a boy and his new hybrid bird friend, and the charming adventures what come running away from home in the 1920s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I would just like to reiterate that this idea (Runawaystuck) is not mine - it's all legislaceratorcherryglare's beautiful dreambaby. I did message her about permission to take a few of the characters into different directions (Rose, Kanaya and a number of other characters did not have designs when I started writing) so I apologise if some of it is jarring!

The ringmaster had caught a new cast member en route. So said the rumours around Seattle before the Circus Scientia rolled up with its fleet of wagons and canvassed tents: a new figure to add to their motley crew of halfbreeds, and this one was winged.

It was big news. Most folk had dismissed the ornithological hybrids as a myth, preferring to focus on the documented problem of the freaks that couldn't fly - mothers hurried their children home from school because 'the wolfmen like to prey on little children like you'; full body checks would be run before admittance to any workplace, searching for scaled clumps of skin, gills, pronounced canines, tails. Bird people were largely unreported and unseen, even amongst their own halfbreed kind.

 Some townspeople had told of humanesque shapes in the sky at dusk - always dusk, as they would hide in the alleys and forage until it was dark enough to travel - but these accounts were treated as urban legends, fairy stories. And now some upstart ringmaster had claimed to have picked one up on the wayside and tamed it into submission.

Opening night at the Circus Scientia ( _6:00PM, Friday, 12th December!!!!!_ declared the poster's gaudy violet print) was an  oversubscribed event. Anyone who was anyone was shelling out for a ticket, front-row seats reaching upwards of five hundred dollars, and the week leading up to the show was a-froth with gossip and speculation, whether hospital or police station or office or school.

The school of one John Egbert, seventeen-year-old prank fanatic and geek extraordinaire, was no exception.

 

 

 

 

 

'You know it's gotta be a hoax, right?'

'Huh?'

John shook his head free of the pleasant daydream fugue it had been shrouded in. Last class on a Friday was never all that great for concentrating in, and _this_ Friday was particularly so. The girl next to him chewed her gum for a couple of seconds before repeating herself, eyebrows raised.

'My dad thinks it's real,' John said slowly. 'He's pretty up on his circus stuff.'

'Then he should know they'll lie like crazy to get suckers to buy tickets,'  she said. John glanced across at her notepad,  to see that she hadn't written anything down except _four more hours!!!!!!!!_ in a variety of different colours . 'It'll just be some dork in some crappy feather suit. Maybe it'll be some halfbreed freak they can dress up like a bird, but that's all it'll be. They've never even got a _photograph_ of a bird mix, and some guy expects us to believe he caught one?'

 'I think I'll stick with what my dad says,' John said.

She didn't dignify him with a response, just rolled her eyes expressively and went back to practicing her typography. John paused for a while, biting his lip and wondering whether or not to chance it.

'If you think it's fake,' he said eventually, 'then why are you going?'

The girl - Veronica? Violet? He couldn't quite remember, but it wasn't like they talked much - hunched over her notebook, her face burning a sudden and violent shade of mulberry. The bell tolled to signal the end of class and she stayed where she was with her mouth pressed tight into a sullen line.

'In case it isn't, right?' When he smiled, it wasn't unkindly.

'Shut your mouth, Egbert,'  she grunted,  shoving her books into her bag and hiking it onto one shoulder. 'I guess I'll see you tonight and we'll find out who's wrong.'

She thought he was going? Ah, but he had given her that impression, hadn't he? With his circus-savvy father and his stupid rush to defend of the trade's integrity. He couldn't really blame her for assuming, even if it meant bringing back the cold throb of resentment in the pit of his stomach; no one ever really likes being left out of something big. Especially so when you were a kid who lived twenty minutes away from the  circus pavilion itself, close enough to sometimes hear the music and the laughter carried on the wind.

' I'm not going,' he said with a cheeriness he didn't feel. He busied himself with his own book-bag so that he didn't have to look into her face while he talked. 'I mean, I want to. But tickets, y'know?'

'Bad break for you, geekoid,' she said, but this time her voice had dropped a few notches on the acidity scale. 'I'll tell you if it's real. Which it won't be, on account of circuses being made up of completely lame fakey bullshit.'

'Thanks.'

'No problem,' she said, and sauntered out of the classroom without saying goodbye.

 

 

John took his time on the way back home. He wasn't thinking about the Circus Scientia's opening night, and how fantastic it would be - he hadn't been to their tour last year, but his father had, and had bored him silly with a verbal essay on just how perfect the whole affair was ('One might say they got the art of circus down to a _science_ ,' Dad had deadpanned while cooking dinner, and John had buried his face in his hands). No, best not to dwell on things like that.

He was thinking about halfbreeds. Not that he liked that word - it was oddly evocative in a way that he was only just beginning to come to terms with - but society had yet to hit upon a consensus for what their proper terminology should be.  Names ranged from the offensively clinical ( _genetic aberration_ ) to the offensive ( _litterslurry, mongrel, zoo children_ ) to the specific ( _lupines, amphibes_ ).  Halfbreeds would have to do.

People had been talking about them a lot recently, sparked into discussion through the circus' influence, and the sentiment regarding them was unanimous: Dangerous. Violent. Upsetting.  THREAT TO OUR CHILDREN, one newspaper screamed, while TEEMING WITH DISEASE emblazoned another. These articles rarely had photographs; these animal sorts would hide at the skirts of society, cloak themselves in darkness and stick to the shadows of a society that actively rejected them.

Halfbreed was an unfitting term in many ways, because they weren't classed as half a person.

Half would have been generous.

It'd be cool though, John allowed, to meet one properly. Maybe it would be a little scary, too, but that was okay. He'd come across a boy with a hard shell and pincers once when he was younger, a sharp-faced boy that was scavenging for food at the back of a burger stand, and the boy had made such a terrible noise and such a violent gesture with his claws that John had run back to his father - shaken, but not terrified. Not in the way you were meant to be terrified of those people. Those _creatures_.

Maybe once the hubbub over this new bird guy - lame fakey bullshit or not- had died down,  John could go to the circus. He could hang back, wait 'til the crowds had died down, and maybe try to meet them. If they worked for circuses alongside people, they had to be safe to talk to, right? It made sense?

That wasn't a bad thought at all.

John found himself whistling as he walked up the pathway to his house.

 

 

The boss at his John's father's office was predicting some big change in the economy - something bad, judging from how often Dad was getting called in and how strained his smile was when they telephoned - and so he wasn't surprised to find his dad in the kitchen , packing a lunch for his work shift. 

Dad didn't appear to notice him arriving at first. He was flipping through a set of manila envelopes and shuffling them into his briefcase.

'Little late home today, son,' he said.

John stuck his tongue out and sat down at the counter. 'I was thinking about things!'

'A pastime I'm proud my boy indulges in,' Dad tipped his hat and put a foil-wrapped slice of cake into his lunchbox. Then he reconsidered, and added a second. From here John could see that the lunchbox already contained a sandwich, a flask of coffee - and for reasons best known to his father - a spare can of shaving cream. 'However. When the youngest Egbert in the house takes a whole extra hour to come home, his father starts to get worried he might come home late enough to miss the best part of the festivities - and _that_ , John, wouldn't do.'

Sometimes Dad was really weird. Not that John was complaining. As far as parents went in the last years of the decade, Dad Egbert was an acutely charming and tolerant one. Unfortunately for John, sometimes this charm manifested itself as eccentric habits like baking multiple cakes a week, packing shaving cream to take to work, and chiding John for almost missing festivities that didn't exist.

'I don't think Nanna would mind me showing up late to sit in the house and listen to radio plays.'

Dear, sweet Nanna Egbert had been deceased for the past eight years. They kept her ashes on the mantle next to the wireless radio.

Dad turned from his completed lunchbox to look John in the eye. There was the merest hint of a twinkle in his eye, and John felt himself tense up. The other wearisome thing about Dad was that he was the only person in the world who could stand toe-to-toe with John on the battlefield of practical jokery.

'Got something behind your ear there, sport.'

Gah, oldest one in the book! Embarrassing for everyone involved.

John felt behind his ear. Nothing.

'Wrong ear,' Dad said. He leant over and twirled a piece of lacquered paper seemingly from thin air. He held it in the air for a moment, face-up, and then handed it over. 'and before you ask, it was free, and before you ask the question after _that_ , let's just say I have good connections.'

The piece of paper in John's hands was small, numbered, and barely had any writing on it at all. What was written was printed in violet ink, and a considerable section was taken up with today's date alone. An ostentatious choice for marketing considering the price coloured ink would fetch at the presses, but it was something of a trademark for the Circus Scientia.

Which was what the ticket in his hands was for.

 For today.

Tonight.

John stood there, mouth dry, temporarily robbed of the ability to speak.

'I wasn't entirely sure if you were still the sort of gentleman to go in for circuses,' Dad said, still in the same even tone of voice as always. He took his pipe out of his mouth for a moment and tapped it against his cheek. 'But after you seemed so interested in that new fellow they've picked up...The one with the wings-'

'The one everyone thinks is fake?'

'Their ringmaster is an insult to the trade and the race that runs it,' Dad said. His smile didn't quite reach to his eyes, which were narrowed and for once unreadable. 'A liar, a cheat, and I would hazard a gamble that the only reason his show runs so smoothly is because he's not afraid to abuse his crew. But I talked with him a little after the show last year, and that was not a man who'd spend so much time and money rigging a hype campaign for a hoax. I swear-'

His son cut him off by seizing him in one of the tightest hugs he'd ever given, all clutching arms and face nuzzled up against his tie. An ungainly for an  enterprising gentleman of eighteen, John thought, but judging from the warm chuckle and his dad's hand ruffling his hair, not an altogether unwelcome one.

'I'll walk you down to the pavilion on my way to work,' Dad said. 'I trust you won't get yourself into any trouble.'

John grinned, trying to quiet the awkward feeling in his stomach. He'd cheered himself up with the idea of waiting afterwards to talk to the crew - talk to the halfbreeds, really, that was what it came down to - but on opening night it would be so busy that there would be no chance.  No chance at all.

At least it meant he wouldn't risk getting into trouble.

'I won't,' he said.


	2. In Which A Circus Troupe Prepares

Two hours to go until show time, and the atmosphere inside the main tent was electric.

The crew were spread thin and given more jobs than some could handle - one juggler, enlisted to help with load-bearing, collapsed under the strain and had to be forcibly slapped back into consciousness; the acrobats were in such high demand for maintenance work that they were excusing themselves every half-hour to vomit up the stress. Everyone had four or five jobs of equal importance, not including their own preparation and make-up for their acts - and of course, they had to keep an eye out for intruders.  The rumours about their new recruit had spread like wildfire, and naturally a few of the newspapers had already tried sending their best reporters in early to catch a glimpse of their latest attraction.

Inside the tent itself there was a heady funk of sweat and smoke as everyone busied themselves with their jobs, and the noise was unbearable.

Rose Lalonde sat at the sidelines. She was free of her awkward costume for the time being. Her ears, velvety feline things that they were, would occasionally flatten against her head in a futile attempt  to dull the racket around herself and the boy to her left. Not that he was feeling particularly talkative tonight, but it wasn't as though she could blame him.

Rose only had one additional job, and it was one she'd been landed with for the past few months. The newest addition to the Circus Scientia family was _difficult_ (Rose prided herself on the art of the understatement) and she'd been assigned to keep him company. The cat and the bird. Let it not be said that their ringmaster didn't have a sense of humour.

Keeping the bird-child company was really just a codeword for ensuring he stayed in line and didn't sabotage the show. He'd clawed at the tamer in their very first practice run, and made a break for freedom during the ensuing panic - unfortunately for him one of the clowns tripped into him as he was running and they were able to dog pile him, force him back into restraints and shove him into the equipment hold .  He made horrible noises for over an hour, trills and screeches interspersed with the most creative cursing Rose had ever heard in her life.

She went to him after the noises stopped and found him heaving with exhaustion, eyes wild and defiant. He  was quite attractive, she observed, and the extra appendages only seemed to highlight it;  none so more than the dark masses of feathers at his back, the ones that thrashed and strained while he struggled.

He spat at the floor in front of her. Rose stood her ground, for once glad for the air of intimidation her circus mask afforded her. 'I know this is difficult.'

'You freaks are making me jump through hoops just so people can throw shit at my head,' he snapped. 'Just fuck off and leave me alone.'

'While I understand, acting up in such an indecorous manner isn't in your best interests,' she continued unabated. 'While our ringmaster gives us the barest minimum of food and shelter, he doesn't see us as equals. He's not above beating us or hobbling you. You in particular.'

The boy curled his claws against his palms. 'Get out.'

She left.

 

But Dave - the name he'd grudgingly spat at the Ringmaster after that first awful week - wasn't actually terrible company once you dug past all the aggression, and Rose was prepared to dig. She'd had questions - they all had, he was the first bird-mix any of the crew had ever met - but she kept those on hold. Rose was a young woman who knew how to pluck her answers from people when they were most determined to keep them hidden. And sure enough, as they practiced together in the cramped confines of the travelling van, he came to tell her things - places he'd travelled,  the measures he'd taken to avoid being seen,  how it felt to fly.

'But it must have been lonely,' she offered one evening while they were eating dinner (bread rolls and half-cooked salmon for her, bread rolls and a handful of sunflower seeds for him). 'Living an existence that necessitates your lack of contact with others.'

'You're a safari reject, same as me,' he said. 'It's lonely for everyone. No one ever said living like this would be like a Beatrix Potter book. Yeah, gather round, kids, 'cause we're heading for the sunny climes of Mr. MacGregor's garden, where the normies and the mongrels all pair up and do the fuckin' Charleston 'til 3 in the morning.'

'I lived with my mother before I joined.'

He looked at her. His expression was passive, but Rose knew better than to buy into it.

'She and I had a strained and ultimately futile relationship, and I was the result of a recessive gene. I was her dirtiest of secrets and the greatest of her disappointments. I'm happier here.'

It was one of the rare occasions where she was being sincere. As teeth-clenchingly awful as the ringmaster could be, he had nothing on her mother's trite peace offerings - drunken attempts at homeschooling, hand-sewn dresses with a hole cut in the skirt for a tail to slip through. Besides, the circus had its perks. One perk in particular came to mind, a perk that worked with Rose as her 'tamer' for sake of the performance, a perk that sewed fine costumes - but to labour _that_ point would be to digress from a digression.

 Dave blinked, wrong-footed.

'I had my brother,' he said, but he refused to speak again after that. He just sat there, morosely picking at his sunflower seeds and looking detached.

 

It was true enough that Dave wasn't one of them. He was a celebrity well beyond the rest of the troupe just by the virtue of his breed, and Rose thought he had the capacity to transcend even that - after those first two uncomfortable weeks, he'd thrown himself into practice with a tenacity that almost worried her. His movements were angry, controlled, deliberate; when he moved it was liquid fire, flesh contorted by alchemy. He would scare the crowd, Rose thought. They would buy his act wholesale and revel in the fear it brought them. _Ah, we were right to resent them, for behold! Such savage movements, such fearsome visages!_   

It didn't matter how impressive Dave's performance was on its own merit. They had to dress him, just as it was necessary to dress all of the animalistic members of the troupe. Dave wasn't happy when Rose cornered him behind the caravans, this time with the seamstress in tow - a member of the team of human actors who masqueraded as 'halfbreed tamers'. A classy, attractive girl with excellent diction, who was as patient and faintly sardonic. She seemed perturbed by the look he fixed her with, but her resolve seemed to strengthen when Rose touched her shoulder.

'I am here to measure you for your vestments,' she announced.

'So you're saying I have to look as dumb as you sorry asses,' Dave said.  'Swell.'

'We will do our level best to ensure as such, yes.' Rose smiled. 'Painful though it is to hide your handsome countenance from an eager public. Circus Scientia has its reputation to uphold, much like the halfbreeds that populate it.'

'Whatever.'

'I understand that your existence is an exhausting enterprise,  permeated with brooding and beset with countless aggrievances,' Kana said while rolling her tape measure out; in her slim hands it more resembled a weapon than a dressmaking tool. Rose watched her roll the tape across the bare stretch of Dave's shoulders, then shake her head, reconsider - she looped it around his waist instead.   'But this will only take a moment.

He grunted and let her measure him.

 

 

 

Kana stayed after Dave was called away for practice. They nestled together in the dark space between the wagons, fingers interlocked, Rose's head against Kana's breastbone, while the campfires burned in the background and the air filled with good-natured chatter about how Seattle was less than two weeks away. Everyone was too busy to notice a two figures amongst the silhouettes, and that was just as well - relationships between the crew were strictly forbidden, and that went double for fraternizing between the half-breeds and their human crew.

'He doesn't belong here,' Kana said. There was a pronounced silence between words that implied she was choosing them with extreme care.

'No, he does not.'

'Even so, he is an excellent performer. ' The seamstress stroked Rose's ears as she talked, which elicited a low and unconscious purr from the back of her throat. 'He risks outshining all of you. The others will become resentful.'

Rose smiled in the half-light. 'You're _worried_.'

'I fail to see how appraising the situation rationally counts as worrying,' Kana deadpanned, but her grip on Rose's fingers tightened. 'If he the Ringmaster can draw in the same crowds with fewer of his cast members then he will do it. And as for David-'

'Dave.'

'As for Dave,' Kana repeated. Eyes sombre and features picked out in the moonlight's soft focus, she reminded Rose of an illustration in one of the children's books her mother would sometimes bring home.  'He will draw crowds as though he is a torch and they are so many lepidopteral insects. The Ringmaster will work him like a slave.'

'And here I was labouring under the misconception that you didn't care for him.'

The fires dimmed around them. Rose stood, curling her tail neatly around herself as she did so - Kana stayed sat on the shelf of wood at the base of the equipment wagon, legs crossed beneath her skirt, and their eyes met in the dark - Rose dipped her head to kiss the other girl, acutely aware of the softness of her own nose and the sharpness of her teeth.

' _You_ care for him,' Kana whispered against her lips.

Rose had denied it.

 

 

But looking at him now - two weeks later, with whip marks across his shoulders to testify for the worst of his backtalk - it was impossible to deny the pullings of some protective feeling. She plucked the word _maternal_ from her mind and immediately discarded it as unfitting. Sisterly, perhaps.

Dave turned to look at her through his mask. It was a monstrous thing, hollow eye sockets and a hooked beak made of lacquered material. His torso was bare and decorated with suitably exotic symbols in ochre paint, and his claws on both his hands and his feet where enhanced. The mask came with its own capelet of dark feathers, matched by further tufts at his arms - and his wings themselves, of course.

'I look like a tool,' he said.

'Welcome to the weary world of showmanship.'

He laughed without humour. When Rose's hand slipped carefully around the pointed spokes of his artificial claws, he clenched back hard enough to bruise.

'Fuck.' It came out between his gritted teeth in a high, frustrated rush. 'This is going to blow.'

'Spectacularly.'

They sat quietly, hands linked, and waited for the show to begin.   

 


End file.
